Monday, 15 August 2011

Enthusiasm by Polly Shulman

Enthusiasm

Polly Shulman

Puffin

[February 16, 2006]

There is little more likely to exasperate a person of sense than finding herself tied by affection and habit to an Enthusiast. Julie knows from bitter experience: her best friend, Ashleigh, is an Enthusiast. Ashleigh's current fancy is also Julie's own passion, Pride and Prejudice, and the heroine's quest for True Love. And so Julie finds herself swept along with Ashleigh, dressed in vintage frocks and sneaking into a dance at the local all-boys' prep school. There they discover several likely candidates for True Love, including the handsome and sensitive Parr. And Julie begins to wonder if maybe this obsession of Ashleigh's isn't so bad after all. . . .

Lemme just say, I am biased.

1.) This is a Pride and Prejudice retelling. Duh.

2.) This girl's name is Julie. *looks at bottom of post*

3.) Julie loves Pride and Prejudice. A lot. As does Ashleigh. *examines self*

4.) This story takes place across a river from where I live. Not even exaggerating. It's one county over.

But really, this was an adorable read. I loved how it wasn't just Pride and Prejudice, there was also an element of my favorite Shakespeare play, A Midsummer Night's Dream. Some people were just a tad confused about who they should be with (*cough*ASHLEIGH*cough*). So we're mixing Midsummer's and Pride and Prejudice and THIS Julie is really happy.

Story Julie was fun and entertaining and she kind of reminded me a lot of myself, except better. And I look more like Ashleigh than Julie. I also LOVED our Darcy and Bingley. Especially the Darcy. And the Bingley. ...Yeah, I went there.

This was just a fun, entertaining read about Pride and Prejudice and teenagers and love and boarding schools and balls (get your mind out of the gutter, you!). Do not let the Stephenie Meyer blurb dissuade you. I loved this book. A lot. Go get it.

1 comment:

I enjoyed this, as well. It pretty much followed Pride and Prejudice. Seems like a lot of books are somewhat a retelling. I reading Epic Fail right now, and I immediately saw Pride and Prejudice. I had no idea that it kind of followed the whole P&P telling.